Journalism Reality Check

The managing editor of Ocean FM, in her radio station's control room.

"Everyone listens to you, everyone knows who you are, but you don't make any money." This was how one radio journalist characterized her father's lament that his smart, talented daughter insisted on being a radio reporter.

The U.S. Embassy in Cotonou, Benin, invited five Beninois women journalists to a roundtable discussion with me about what it's like to be in our profession, and what we can learn from each other. The pretense of these setups always worries me — that I have indispensable wisdom to impart, or that the strategies and tactics I've learned in the U.S. will be applicable to their circumstances.

A report by Freedom House describes Benin's press freedom as not great, but better than its neighbors. The problem of access journalism — the ability of reporters to directly question and get honest answers from people in power — is familiar, but the consequences here are more dire. In America, over reliance on access can lead to stories that lack important critique or stories that curry favor with the very politicians who should be covered critically. Here, critical reporting might lead to the government shutting down your newspaper for a period of time, as happened to the major publication Le Matinal.

The confluence of social media and “fake news” is also creating problems for news media here, which these women described with grim expressions. The encrypted messaging service WhatsApp is used widely in Benin, often with large distribution lists circulating dubious information. On the one hand, accurate information can spread so easily and quickly that it leaves journalists wondering what their own role is in distributing information; on the opposite hand there have been numerous fictitious stories that spread on WhatsApp, and that then were repeated in mainstream media by poorly skilled reporters who didn’t ground truth the story.

And then there is the problem of per diems. This isn’t unique to journalism, many people in Benin are not paid salaries but instead receive per diem payment for work. For reporters, it means someone is paying you to report a specific story, or not report it. (The Freedom House report names this what it is: bribery.) It puts reporters in the position of getting paid, or not getting paid, in dubious circumstances.

On the surface, many of the problems they face would make their American female colleagues nod in solidarity. Dealing with squirrelly politicians. The metastasis of fake news. Low pay.  I listened and took notes as they spoke through an interpreter about their specific experiences with these problems, and it left me feeling like.... wow, do we (Americans) have no idea what our colleagues are facing around the world, even in relatively good circumstances.

And then there is sexism.

Their stories unfolded gradually, their trust in each other growing the longer we spent together. One woman would obliquely refer to the sexism she faces being one of the few women working as a political reporter, and everyone would nod. The next woman would add a little detail, noting that women reporters were passed over for the plum assignment to cover the opening of the parliament that week. By the end of the discussion, one woman had explained that men would sometimes demand sex in exchange for giving her an interview, an anecdote that elicited entirely too little reaction from her peers. They hadn’t had these conversations among themselves before, and they hadn’t yet found support and solidarity with women working in competing newsrooms. Yet they bonded in the shared frustration of trying to pursue their work in an ecosystem that wasn’t built to to honor their integrity.

As they talked, I was thinking of the countless hours I've spent reading and discussing the #metoo stories that eviscerated U.S. newsrooms and shattered journalists' trust in their own institutions. The response to those stories was outrage, and that demonstrates the difference between what U.S. journalists are dealing with and what faces these colleagues in Benin. Meanwhile, I was also internally cataloging the minor grievances and petty rivalries that can preoccupy a break room or give rise to secret Slack channels back home, and I was feeling ill over how those slights compare to the egregious circumstances these women matter-of-factly described. And even as I counseled myself that it's unproductive to compare indignities, I knew in the back of my mind that I am lucky for the things I have to complain about.

Five of Cotonou's journalists explained to two Americans what it's like to do their work in Benin, but still had energy to smile afterward.

[April 2018]

Amal: This Is What Empowerment Looks Like

"These women have faced every disadvantage you can imagine - orphaned, divorced, single motherhood." Oumaima doesn't mince words about the stigma and dead ends faced by the women who are enrolled in the job training program that her nonprofit offers. Amal Association trains disadvantaged Marrakech women to work in professional kitchens, employment that is a pathway to financial independence. Some of the trainees have experienced domestic violence and assault, many have little or no education, all of them have little or no means to support themselves.

"Here at Amal,” says Oumaima, “for the first time, they don't feel judged. They know that we are all here to change their lives."

Fatiha stokes the fire in the clay bread oven in the garden at Amal Targa.

Here's the premise of Amal:

Women, especially single women with children, face extraordinary social and economic barriers in Morocco that create a feedback loop that grinds them further down. But with the right skills, these women can get good jobs in Marrakech’s thriving hospitality industry. Amal selects women in need of support, provides them with rigorous culinary training for six months and then connects them with work when they graduate. Amal runs a top-rated restaurant, a catering service, a school lunch program and cooking classes; these revenues streams support the training program, and the businesses are staffed by the trainees who learn and work under the direction of their instructors.

The new cohort of trainees show off the school bags they painted with a visiting art teacher.

My time volunteering with Amal coincided with the start of a new training cohort — 30 young women full of first-day nerves, nearly silent and (I imagine) totally stressed out about messing up. Three days of orientation, team building and the donning of official kitchen uniforms gave them a boost of confidence; soon they were quicker to smile and laugh with each other, and moved around the kitchen with more assurance.

The kitchen is an incredible place to observe, preferably from a corner where you won’t be in the way. Amal’s Targa center makes 120 multi-course school lunches for two private schools in Marrakech; Amal’s Gueliz restaurant serves one of the best lunches in Marrakech to scores of diners. The instructors have high standards as they issue orders along with explanations. Every kitchen station is a blur of organized, constant activity. Watching the head chef run the kitchen is a master class of women in leadership: Karima takes no crap, has exacting standards and tells trainees exactly what they need to do and how to do it. But even at the height of stress she has an easy and supportive smile for the nervous trainees she’s managing.

In the garden at Amal Targa, Warda explains their environmental and conservation practices to tourists enrolled in a tajine cooking class.

I can share similar observations about all the women who work and teach at Amal. Warda is tiny in stature but she commands a room with her clarity of purpose and ease in speaking (four, five languages?) in front of large groups of foreign visitors. Fatiha is quiet but she conveys incredible confidence, warmth and kindness without using a lot of words.

And Oumaima.

My god, she is a force of nature! Just try keeping up with her for half a day, I dare you. In any given moment she’s making staffing decisions, giving feedback on a new recipe, taking phone calls from a landlord for a new cafe that Amal is opening, negotiating with vendors and noticing the weeds in the garden. Her degree is in engineering and she's enrolled in an MBA program; she, too, speaks several languages perfectly, including sign language. Because that new cafe she’s helping Amal open? It will be staffed by the deaf and mute women that Amal is now training.

Seriously, these women are unstoppable. 

Throughout the time I’ve spent in Morocco, I have been interested in gender roles here, sometimes fully preoccupied by it. I’m loathe to wade into cultural judgment but I am intensely interested to hear how these women think about the gender expectations within their culture, and why they do not have the patience for it. 

Spend even a little time at Amal Association and you will come away inspired and a bit teary-eyed at what these women are accomplishing. I had the honor of volunteering for just a short time, but they made a profound impression on me.

Warda and Oumaima humor me with a selfie.

[March 2018.]